LAURA SATERSMOEN: I’m Laura Satersmoen, Executive Director of the Fisher Art Foundation – whose collection is now filling more than three floors of SFMOMA. Here’s Don Fisher:
DON FISHER: Well, the meaning of art to me? In fact, I’ve had a big question that I’ve asked the people of San Francisco MOMA is, please describe what art is.
LAURA SATERSMOEN: Don Fisher, who passed away in 2009, co-founded Gap with his wife Doris. On these “collector” audio stops, you’ll be hearing personal thoughts from recordings of Doris and Don Fisher, along with their three sons, Bob, Bill, and John. Here’s Doris in a conversation with their son Bob at SFMOMA from a few years ago:
DORIS FISHER: Don and I never had, like a lot of people do, art advisors. We decided we didn’t want one. I want to pick it out, number one. And number two, I want to visit the artist studios. I don’t want somebody else to go out and visit the artist studio and decide that that’s something we should…
BOB FISHER: And that’ll be letting somebody else have the fun.
DORIS FISHER: Yeah. Well, I think so too.
BOB FISHER: Our family and SFMOMA share a lot of the same values. The importance of creativity is obviously something vital to a place like this. It was critical to my father and my mother, the innovation and new thought. Being a contemporary museum puts you in a very different place than being in an encyclopedic museum. And I think you’re much more on the cutting edge of new ideas, new culture, new thought. And by virtue of the business that my parents started, by virtue of The Gap, as a family, being on the cutting edge was always something important to us, knowing what the new thing was going to be, whether it was the new thing in clothes or the new thing in art. This was also the city that my parents were both born in, that my brothers and I were both born in, and making a commitment to the city, I think this is really the ultimate gift to the citizens of San Francisco, and to really the people that love art around the world.
